


Live for the Day

by beckalina



Series: Scenes from an American Movie [1]
Category: Jonas Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Incest, Pre-Slash, Scenes From an American Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-23
Updated: 2010-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckalina/pseuds/beckalina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But Joe was never one for following the rules.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Live for the Day

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the "Scenes From an American Movie" 'verse, which is based on songs from Everclear's "Songs From an American Movie".
> 
> _Joe turned eighteen and walked out of Nick's life. Nick turned eighteen and walked into Joe's._

Nick knows what’s expected of him. He’s supposed to graduate from high school with a high GPA and go on to college like his oldest brother Kevin. He’s supposed to graduate college with a high GPA and start a career like his oldest brother Kevin. He’s probably also supposed to meet a nice girl and settle down before he’s even old enough to drink, like Kevin did.

What Nick is not supposed to do, ever, is miss his brother Joe. He’s not even supposed to acknowledge that Joe exists, at least not around their parents. Joe did not do what he was supposed to. Joe graduated from high school—he’d done that much correctly. But Joe was never one for following the rules.

The day Joe turned eighteen, he packed a few bags, came out of the closet, and walked out into the hot Texas sun; their enraged father screaming epithets at the closed door before anyone could even process what had just happened. It was the last time anyone in the family saw Joe. It was the last time his name was ever spoken inside of the family home.

Sometimes Nick gets postcards. There’s never a message written on them, just a purple inked doodle of a smiley face wearing thick black frames. They’re sent to a house down the street, the house where Nick’s best friend Maya lives. If they were sent to the Jonas residence, there’s no doubt that they would be thrown away before Nick even had a chance to see them.

Nick keeps the cards in a shoebox underneath his bed, along with the plain blue notebook that he uses for writing out song lyrics—and anything else he wants to keep hidden from his father. The cards are from all over the country, though there are no more than two or three per state. Bright, glossy photographs depicting landmarks and scenic views of land all over the nation.

Joe’s been everywhere in the two and a half years since he left Dallas, judging by the images that Nick stares at almost daily. There are two from Washington DC, and Nick can almost hear the dirty jokes his brother must have made about the Washington Memorial. There’s one from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the oddly shaped building lit up bright against the dark Cleveland sky. Then there’s Nashville, Key West, San Diego, Seattle, Philadelphia, New Orleans, St. Louis, and Las Vegas.

The most recent two are both from Arizona, one a brilliant rendering of the Grand Canyon, oranges and browns and purples highlighting a vista of sky and rock—the other, a vintage picture of old Route 66, brightly lit signs advertising food and lodging. They came three weeks apart, which means that Joe seems to be staying in one place, or at the very least one state. Most of the time it seemed as though he jumped from city to city in only a matter of days.

Sometimes late at night, Nick takes them out of the box and studies them. He places them in chronological order, trying to build a narrative that will explain what his brother has been doing since that stifling August day when Joe walked out of Nick’s life.

There’s nothing that Nick wants more than to know why Joe ran. Well, that’s not entirely truthful. He knows why Joe ran—an Evangelical father who never hesitated to preach about fire and brimstone whenever he caught a glimpse of something he thought was sinful. Joe would have been kicked out if he hadn’t chosen to leave on his own. But why did he have to run so far? He could have stayed in Texas, or just simply stayed in one place—one place where Nick would have been able to find him. Most of all, Nick wonders why his brother couldn’t have just waited three years.

He hates Joe sometimes, for leaving. He lost his brother and his best friend the day Joe stepped out the door, and since then there’s been a certain listlessness to everything that he does. The only reason he bothered to keep his grades up was the thought that if he was able to get into any college he wanted, he could find one in a place that Joe might eventually show up. He mostly just exists, waiting for the day when he can leave his parents’ house behind, too.

For most of the summer leading up to Nick’s senior year of high school, the flow of postcards dries up. Nick wonders and worries and tries to keep his mind from coming up with any number of ghoulish scenarios that might explain their absence. Finally, there’s one in July, a generic panorama of a desert, giant green cacti rising up from the reddish sand. Joe is still in Arizona, which means that he’s been there for two months—the longest he’s stayed in one place.

Nick tries not to put too much thought into it. Maybe Joe ran out of money and got stuck there, maybe he found a guy to settle down with. He swallows past the sudden lump in his throat and runs his thumb over the smiley face on the back of the postcard before tucking it into his back pocket. There must be some reason that Joe is staying in Arizona, and maybe he’ll finally give Nick a way to get in contact with him.

The next postcard doesn’t come until the middle of September, the week of Nick’s birthday. He and Maya walk home from school together, as they always do, and she nods to him when she pulls the mail out of the mailbox. He’s gotten so used to the sad shake of her head that, for a moment, he believes he imagined otherwise.

It’s another card from Arizona, this one from Phoenix. Three months and Joe is still in the same place. It has to mean something. Nick slips it into his bag while he and Maya get started on their calculus homework. He doesn’t flip it over because he knows what he’s going to find. Later, he’ll look at it. Later he’ll trace the lines of the drawing with his fingernail and wonder why Joe never seems to deviate from the design—because it’s the simplest and least important thing that Nick can contemplate, when it comes to his brother.

Slipping between the covers at night, Nick reaches into the front pocket of his bag for his newest postcard. He wants to pretend that he forgot it was there, but he knows better. All through the silent dinner with his parents, all through playing Madden with Frankie, the knowledge that the card awaited him burned in the back of his mind.

He flips the card over and has to slap his own hand over his mouth to muffle the surprised scream he can’t help but make. In place of the usual smiley face, there’s an address. Nick nearly breaks his ankle, his feet tangled up in the sheets in his haste to get to his computer and find out just where exactly Joe is apparently living.

The address leads to an apartment building outside of Phoenix. Nick studies the area on street view, virtually walking up and down the surrounding streets. He finds himself wondering if Joe ever eats at the Thai restaurant one block down, if he does his laundry at the laundromat across the street, or if buys his groceries at the small grocery store a few streets over.

He imagines the kind of life his brother must have, maybe stumbling home late at night from the bar down the street. Maybe with his arm wrapped around the waist of some skinny twink, ducking into the alley because neither of them can wait until they make it to Joe’s apartment. Nick shifts in his seat, his eyes burning as he stares at the image of the alley on his screen. He can almost see Joe leaning against the dirty brick, head thrown back and pants around his ankles. He clicks out of the tab and closes the laptop, his hands unsteady.

The sky outside his window is beginning to lighten when he finally stands up from the desk and crosses the room to drag a suitcase out of his closet. His parents will think he just left early for school, and they aren’t likely to notice that he’s gone until late. It’s the morning of his eighteenth birthday, and there’s no better present he can think to give himself than finally seeing Joe again.

The credit card that he was given for emergencies catches Nick’s eye when his wallet falls open on the bed. He’ll find the earliest flight that he can, and he’ll get back sometime on Sunday. He figures that he has four days for this trip. That way, he’ll only miss two days of school and his parents will eventually forgive him. He buys a plane ticket to Tucson with the idea that he can take a bus from there to Phoenix—he doesn’t want to fly directly into the city in case his parents try to find out where he is. He’s going to be dead as soon as they realize he’s gone, but he’ll deal with the consequences later. He doesn’t want anything to interrupt his scant time with Joe.

He stuffs the shoebox full of cards and song lyrics into his bag, grabs a few handfuls of clothing—and after a moment’s hesitation, he takes all of his emergency cash out of the box on the dresser. His guitar case catches his eye in the corner of the room and he thinks about taking it with him. He’s only going to be gone for a few days, but the guitar is his most prized possession. He wouldn’t feel right without it. He decides that maybe he could use it to play Joe some of the songs he’s written.

He’s on his way out the door, flight confirmation in hand, before the rest of his family even begins to stir. The taxi is waiting down the street, just as he’d asked when he called the company earlier. He tosses his bag and guitar case into the trunk and slides into the backseat. As the taxi pulls away from the curb, Nick turns around to watch his house disappear from view.


End file.
